Reckoning at Dawn
by NicoleTwilight
Summary: The first night on Isle Esme. While Bella sleeps, Edward slowly realizes he has hurt her.


Stephanie Meyers owns all things Twilight!

_______________________________________________________

I sat in bed next to her as she slept, trying to remain very still while the minutes ticked slowly by. I knew she needed to sleep, and I needed time to calm down. I let my eyes drink in her sleeping form, but I did not touch her. I was afraid that if I felt her warm skin under my touch, I would not be able to stop myself from waking her up. _Selfish. Let her sleep._ So I remained still at her side, and for a while just let the memories of the night wash over me. Agonizingly wonderful memories. I replayed them over and over in my head. Beyond my expectations, beyond anything I had prepared for. Silently I marveled at the how she kept making my life better, bringing it to new levels I had never thought possible. For a while I was gloriously happy, basking in her love and nothing else. But eventually my brain began to reorganize itself, and a small, but vocal, part of it started to insist on dealing with less pleasant events. The lapses in control I did not want to face.

I started with the most obvious, the feathers that coated us both as well as the floor surrounding the bed. I tried to remember exactly how it had happened. It was near the end. My face pressed against her neck, her blood racing, pumping furiously in the large vein under my lips. And her scent, not just at her neck but everywhere, everywhere. It seemed pour out of her and saturated the hot room, clinging to every drop of humidity. It swirled around me, intensifying and yet competing with the utter ecstasy of the moment. The terrifying feeling that my control was slipping, my mouth filling with so much venom that I was afraid it would drip through my clenched teeth onto her skin. The few threads of control I was hanging onto, that portion of my brain, small but still potent, screaming at me. _Danger. Get away. Move away. Danger_. But my body wouldn't let me leave. Wrenching my face away from her neck, looking for some other outlet. And then nothing. That was the part that frightened me the most. That span of time, however brief, that I couldn't really recall actually biting the pillow. _Biting them instead of her._

I shuddered convulsively, and tried to shake off that thought, although I vowed not to forget it. I needed to turn these memories around in my head, examine them. What could I learn, what could I do better next time, to not let my control get away from me again, even that much. _Next time._ This thought sent a rush of happier emotions through me. Yes, I thought, there would be a next time…

I looked at her eyes, closed and peaceful. Judging my returning control, I allowed myself to brush my fingers gently over her lips. Then I glanced quickly down at them. My sensitive fingers had picked up some minute changes. I slowly traced over them with my cool fingers, feeling her hot breath. They felt a little different, a little fuller maybe. Then I winced, realizing they were swollen. Swollen from kissing rock hard lips. I pressed my cold hand against them, and tried to recall if I had ever noticed that before, if my careful kisses had ever bruised her soft lips in the past. _Something else to worry about._ My eyes trailed over her face, and then I saw the faint shadow along her cheek. I felt a little tremor of panic but tried to control it. I brushed my fingers over her cheekbone – the mark was very faint. I tried to recall the sequence of the night, looking for a time when my hand had been too rough against her face. As I slowly went back through the memories, I grew infuriated at myself for all the times I could not clearly recall my actions, moments lost to my passion. It was then, looking back at her face, that the shadows on her arm caught my eye.

They looked like shadows that might have grown slowly in the moonlight. But they were too small, too defined. I pushed down the sheet I had covered her with, exposing more of her upper arm. The shadows continued. The faint smell of blood hovered around them, slightly off. And then it hit me like a wrecking ball. So strong was the force of the realization, so sudden was its attack, that it launched me out of the bed and backward across the room till my back was pressed into the far wall. They were bruises. Bruises made by me. Injuries to her pale, translucent, delicate skin, caused by the rock hard hands of a monster. Before I could even flagellate myself over this, new and more horrible thoughts began to enter my brain. Visions thrown at me by Jacob, the day of our wedding. Bella, bruised and broken, crushed, killed. _Killer_ he had wordlessly shrieked. _Disgusting monstrous murderer._ I shook Jacob's thoughts from my mind, but his concerns were mine. What if she had been internally injured? Organs crushed, bleeding out as she slowly died.

I felt bolted to the wall in my fear of how I might have injured her. _Coward. Go back and check her out._ I wrenched myself away from the wall and moved swiftly back to stand by the bed. I closed my eyes, not just to blot out the sight of her injuries, but so I could concentrate. In all the countless nights I had lay by Bella while she slept, I had listened to living sounds of her body. I knew every nuance of her heart, had memorized the sound of the blood pumping in and out, followed it as it traveled through the veins in her body into her organs, arms and legs, around and around and then back again. I listened carefully now. Everything sounded OK. There didn't seem to be any unexpected movement of the blood, any sign it was leaking or going where it should not. I felt some measure of relief, some sense that she had not been hurt, at least on the inside. Perhaps I had just held her arm too hard one time, one moment of less than perfect control. _She could forgive that, right_? I cursed myself – she shouldn't have to. It was inexcusable.

I pulled the sheet slowly down, and as I did I was over taken by such overwhelming feelings of disgust and remorse that it brought me to my knees by the bed. It was not just one momentary loss of control. She was covered in bruises, all over her body. One, I imagined, for each of the moments that I couldn't remember being in control. The feelings washed over me again and again. I knew that if I had been human, I would have been violently ill. It was just as I had always feared – I was too much of a selfish monster to do this without hurting her. My own pleasure had let that precious control slip. I had let her down, and Carlisle, and Alice. I knew that the monster in me, the one I had spent decades fighting to control, still held so much sway over me it could lead me to hurt the one thing I loved above all others. I moaned and put my forehead against the bed. I stayed there, a statue in my grief and horror, for a long time. Warm, loving and trusting, and instead of protecting her, I hurt her.

Eventually sun started to leak in the windows, and Bella made a small noise and rolled over, her delicate arm reaching out to the space next to her. _Looking for me_. It only served to increase my disgust with myself, that this precious creature still sought to touch me, not knowing the violence I had inflicted on her. The idea of her waking up in physical pain that was caused by me nearly undid me. Perhaps she had been in pain the entire time, unwilling to speak up. I crushed my fists to my forehead, wishing I could drive them right through my skull. What would she think of me when she awoke and realized what had happened to her? Flashes of possible reactions, ranging from tears to disgust to fear, flew through my head, and brought a cold, dreadful feeling over me. And then the anger at myself flared again. _Don't pity yourself._ I deserved every negative feeling she would have for what I had done, and more. I stood up, my hands balled into fists, and fought to get control on my wild emotions. It would upset her if I were not next to her when she woke up. As much as I didn't deserve to be there, I couldn't cause her more confusion or pain now. But I would frighten her with the state I was in right now. I needed to get control over the intensity of my emotions.

I lay carefully back in the bed, trying not to touch her. But she immediately rolled back to me and cuddled onto my chest. Despite everything, a rip of desire flared through me. I fought it back, hating myself. I didn't deserve to touch her, to even think of her that way. I lay still, figuring there were a couple more hours until she woke up, time to watch the bruises expand and darken her delicate, white skin. A couple more hours to remind myself I was a monster. The sun burst over the horizon of the ocean and night turned the dawn


End file.
